親子諮詢

China Medical University Hospital participated in the promotion of special children's services in greater Taichung area at its inception; since then, the department of rehabilitation and the department of psychiatry have had full-time physicians to serve special children in the Hospital. In mid-1998, Dr. Huang-tsung Kuo officially set up an early intervention service system in the Hospital. In 1999, with the assistance of the Department of Health and Hospital staff, he founded the Joint Assessment and Parent-Child Counseling Center for Children with Developmental Delay, promoting evaluation and appraisal in combination with the related professional staff inside and outside the Hospital. In January 2001, the center was officially renamed the Joint Assessment Centre for Children with Developmental Delay as commissioned by the Department of Health. Through early care or intervention, early detection and treatment can be attained, grasping the golden period of treatment and the best intervention effect. Infants at the age of 0-6 mature and develop various abilities as they grow, while some children develop relatively more slowly. Such children suffer from "developmental delay" when one or more of their organs, perceptions, movements, language, cognition, and social emotions lag more than 20 percent behind normal children. There are many causes of developmental delay in children, and further detailed examination and diagnosis are usually required. Whether the child belongs to a "high risk group" for developmental delay, such as premature infants, obvious birth injuries, congenital genetic diseases or family history, they should be regularly followed up. Parents and teachers can refer to the health care manual or ask public health nurses to help with development screening when they give a vaccination to see if their children are underdeveloped. This year, the Joint Assessment Center for Child Development of China Medical University Hospital has entered its 12th year. In addition to the work of child development assessment, with the assistance of relevant professionals, the center provides necessary resources to help the children with developmental delay and their families to face and solve the problems involving early intervention. The center also actively pushes parental education and assists parents of individual cases with immediate intervention referrals and related counseling at outpatient clinics, and helps integrate family functions as far as possible. For the convenience of parents, the center features a single window and a joint clinic. In addition to a single window consultation service provided by the social workers of the early intervention center, the joint outpatient clinic is operated by pediatric neurologists, rehabilitation specialists, and pediatric psychiatrists, who jointly see, evaluate, and diagnose patients with a preliminary understanding of whether they develop slowly or normally, and whether they are have other related physical, psychological, and social environmental problems. After that, they will arrange follow-up professional evaluation, depending on condition, by psychologists, rehabilitation therapists, and special education teachers, for further evaluation of motor perception, daily life, language communication, interpersonal interaction, and cognitive learning, or refer them to other specialists, such as ophthalmologists, otolaryngologists, and genetic endocrinologists for joint diagnosis and treatment. Upon completion of the assessment report, the center convenes an intervention conference by inviting relevant professionals to attend and explain the assessment results to parents, as well as recommendations for intervention programs and educational placement, such as placement in early intervention centers, pre-school special education institutions, integrated pre-school education institutions, community hospitals, or community rehabilitation centers. It will continuously track and regularly assess their condition.